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Builder: Reuter Organ Co., 1959. Manuals: 2 Ranks: 16 Action: Electro-pneumatic Notes: Information from The American Organist magazine (November 2010 issue, page 94). St. Andrews United Methodist Church at 31st and Iola in Des Moines had diminished in membership. Its members had been scattered throughout the Des Moines area when the freeway came through just a block away from the church. Membership and attendance was declining and the future of the church was in doubt. The Methodist Church on 8th and Grand in West Des Moines felt that their West Des Moines United Methodist Church had reached optimum size and had a desire to help start a new church in the rapidly growing western suburbs of Des Moines. St. Andrews had members willing to become a part of a new congregation as well as money that could be raised from the sale of their church building, a parsonage and a piece of land they had previously purchased for the merger of the Evangelical United Brethren and Methodist denominations. West Des Moines United Methodist Church had $20,000 in their new church mission fund and a number of members willing to help form the nucleus of a new congregation in the western suburbs and United Methodist Builders had contributed $24,000 for the new church. An agreement was signed with the West Des Moines Community Schools to rent a multi-purpose room/gymnasium at Western Hills School for $10.00 per Sunday plus $5.00 per Sunday for a classroom --- a new church was born On October 21, 1971, with 117 people in attendance! On March 11, 1973, church services were held for the last time in the Western Hills School gymnasium. At the conclusion of that 1973 Sunday morning service, all present trekked to 42nd and Ashworth for the long awaited ground breaking ceremony. Heralding trumpets opened the Consecration Celebration Service on March 10, 1974, with an overflow crowd of 300! Membership reached 195 in mid 1974, then 219 and to 358 by the end of December 1979! Reuter was renovated and expanded to 3-manuals/40-ranks by Reuter in 2009. Chris Leavaer (Reuter) and Organ Historical Society as of 2005. |
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